American writer, actor, and director, John Cameron Mitchell was the mastermind behind Hedwig & the Angry Inch and Shortbus, two movies that showed how independent film could reinvent its terms of reference without forgetting how to entertain and stimulate. “I don’t read as much as I used to,” he says. “There will be a time that I do again. Here are some beautiful stories that taught me things at different points in my life.”

Below are John Cameron Mitchell’s favorite books, available to purchase as a set or individually.

JM Barrie

Madeline L’Engle

Alongside Watership Down, this taught me that I had to leave home. (Children who bounced balls in synchronous time were not free. Rabbits who had all they wanted to eat were being bred for slaughter.) Read, age 11 while at Carlekemp Priory Boarding School, North Berwick, Scotland.

Vladimir Nabokov

Samuel Beckett

Taught me that we are going to die and we don’t know why. (I had coffee with him the year before he died and asked him to sign a copy “to John Cameron Mitchell”. He started writing in a shaky hand, then paused. “Do you need all three?”) Read, age 25 in St-Germain-Des-Pres, Paris.

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Grand lists is a curated arts site specializing in books and movies selected by 100 public figures and celebrities, ranging from designers, musicians, artists, actors, performers and directors, to politicians, novelists, scientists and athletes.